National Nanotechnology Initiative in FY2001 Budget

by Richard P. Terra

President Clinton's FY 2001 budget request includes a major new initiative, called the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), that proposes a $227 million increase in the government's investment in nanotechnology research and development. The budget request was submitted to Congress on 7 February.

The Administration is making NNI a top priority. The initiative will nearly double federal spending in the field over the next five years. The plan calls for an increase in nanotechnology research spending to a total of $497 million in the coming fiscal year. The NNI is a formal implementation of the nanotechnology policy that has been under consideration for the past year (see coverage in Foresight Update 36 & 37, and Foresight Briefing #5). In Congressional hearings last year, the policy received positive bi-partisan support.

NNI is just part of a larger science and technology funding increase proposed for FY2001 and beyond. In a speech at California Institute of Technology on 21 January, President Clinton announced he request a $2.8 billion increase in federal science and technology R&D funding, called the "Twenty-First Century Research Fund," in his FY2001 budget proposal. Clinton described the funds as investments that will enable America to continue to lead in the 21st century by increasing support in all scientific and engineering disciplines, including biomedical research, information technology, clean energy, university-based research - and nanotechnology.

Among a number of large funding initiatives, Clinton specifically called
for the funding of NNI to accelerate basic research in the field:

"My budget supports a major new national nanotechnology initiative worth $500 million," Clinton said. "Cal Tech is no stranger to the idea of nanotechnology, the ability to manipulate matter at the atomic and molecular level. Over 40 years ago, Cal Tech's own Richard Feynman asked, what would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them? . . . Just imagine, materials with 10 times the strength of steel and only a fraction of the weight; shrinking all the information at the Library of Congress into a device the size of a sugar cube; detecting cancerous tumors that are only a few cells in size. Some of these research goals will take 20 or more years to achieve. But that is why -- precisely why -- . . . there is such a critical role for the federal government."

Clinton also alluded to the NNI in his annual State of the Union address to Congress on 26 January.

"Now, in the new century, innovations in science and technology will be key not only to the health of the environment but to miraculous improvements in the quality of our lives and advances in the economy's. . . . we ought to keep in mind: government-funded research brought supercomputers, the Internet, and communications satellites into being.

"Soon researchers will bring us devices that can translate foreign languages as fast as you can talk; materials 10 times stronger than steel at a fraction of the weight; and, this is unbelievable to me, molecular computers the size of a teardrop with the power of today's fastest supercomputers.

"To accelerate the march of discovery across all these disciplines in science and technology, I ask [Congress] to support my recommendation of an unprecedented $3 billion in the 21st Century Research Fund, the largest increase in civilian research in a generation. We owe it to our future."

"These steps will allow us to lead toward the far frontiers of science and technology. They will enhance our health, the environment, the economy in ways we can't even imagine today."

Agencies participating in NNI include the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Energy (DOE), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

NNI - Current and Proposed Funding by Agency:

FY 2000 ($M)

FY 2001 ($M)

Percent Increase

NSF

97

217

124%

DoD

70

110

57%

DoE

58

96

66%

NASA

4

20

400%

DoC (NIST)

8

18

125%

NIH

32

36

13%

Total

270

497

84%

Roughly 70% of the new funding proposed under the NNI will go to university
based research, which will help meet the growing demand for workers with
nanoscale science and engineering skills.

According to a New
York Times report ("A Clinton Initiative in a Science of
Smallness," 21 Jan 2000) on Clinton's proposal for NNI, there has been
an explosion of nanotechnology-oriented research proposals coming from university
campuses in the last year, a government official said,and it has only been
possible to finance a fraction of them under the current spending limits.

NNI builds upon previous and current nanotechnology programs. According
to the NSF, the initiative's research "investment" strategy is
balanced across five basic funding mechanisms:

Long-term fundamental nanoscience and engineering research that will
build upon a fundamental understanding and synthesis of nanometer-size
building blocks in diverse fields. NNI will provide sustained support
to individual investigators and small groups doing fundamental, innovative
research and will promote university-industry-federal laboratory and interagency
partnerships.

Grand Challenges -- specific technical goals such as:

The expansion of mass storage electronics to multi-terabit memory capacity
that will increase the memory storage per unit surface a thousand fold

Making materials and products from the bottom-up, that is, by building
them up from atoms and molecules

Developing stronger, lighter materials with great strength

Improving computer speed and efficiency by factors of millions

Detect cancerous cells by nanoengineered agents in the human body;

Removing the finest contaminants for a cleaner environment

Doubling the energy efficiency of solar cells.

Centers and Networks of Excellence that will encourage research
networking and shared academic users' facilities.

Research Infrastructures will be funded for metrology, instrumentation,
modeling and simulation, and user facilities.

Ethical, Legal, Societal Implications and Workforce Education
and Training efforts will be undertaken to promote a new generation of
skilled workers in the multidisciplinary perspectives necessary for rapid
progress in nanotechnology. The impact nanotechnology has on society from
legal, ethical, social, economic, and workforce preparation perspectives
will be studied.

Proposed Funding by NNI Research Portfolio:

Fundamental Research: $195M

Grand Challenges: $110M

Centers And Networks of Excellence: $77M

Research Infrastructure: $87M

Ethical,Legal, and Social Implications and Workforce: $28M

Total: $497M

According to Dr. Neal Lane, the President's Science Advisor, "The
Administration believes that nanotech will have a profound impact on our
economy and society in the early 21st Century, perhaps comparable to that
of information technology or cellular, genetic, and molecular biology."

Lane and other Administration officials, including NSF Director Dr. Rita
Colwell, were cautiously optimistic that the increases in science and technology research and development funding in the President's FY2001 budget would be approved by Congress.